The Meanings of News: How U.S. Adults Think About the Word “News”

This study explores the immediate, top-of-mind meanings audiences hold about “news.” Inspired by recent audience-centric approaches in defining news, we adopt a schema framework to investigate mental representations of the news concept. Using a national probability survey of U.S. adults, we employ a thought-listing exercise combined with a network analysis. Our findings paint a complex picture of news and its meaning today. We identify six distinct news schemas (i.e., clusters of co-occurring words) that correspond to different audience demographics, political ideology, and news consumption. The findings underscore that news is a dynamic concept with implications for journalism scholarship and practice.